Smoke re-concentrator refurbishes blown electronic components

As one engineer told me: "It's amazing how much black smoke they can fit into even a small FPGA these days, and once it's out there is no getting it back in again - even if you catch it all in a jam jar."

You know what it's like when you connect a power supply to your system with the incorrect polarity – or maybe you connect the power supply the right way round, but you've inadvertently soldered the pins of some component to the wrong power plane(s) – and "poof" – a small cloud of pungent-smelling smoke appears.

Many people think that this is "game over" and the component in question can no longer function. What you may not realize is that it was only the concentrated smoke that was loaded into the component under extreme pressure during the manufacturing process that made it work in the first place.

In the not-so-distant past, almost any old smoke would do. More recently, we've seen the introduction of solid crystalline smoke because of its small feature size... that popping sound you hear when you apply the incorrect potential to the component is the rapid phase change from solid crystal to gas (the gaseous form is the one with which we are most familiar).

Furthermore, the rumor on the street is that, for next-generation silicon chips implemented at the 20nm process node and below, they are going to have to dispense with even the solid crystalline smoke – my contacts tell me that they're just going to fill the space with individual Bucky-balls and hope for the best.

As one engineer told me: "It's amazing how much black smoke they can fit into even a small FPGA these days, and once it's out there is no getting it back in again – even if you catch it all in a jam jar."

Well, I can certainly understand where he's coming from, but that's because he's not acquainted with the Electrical Smoke Re-concentrator from those clever folks at AEROstich.com:

When you read the product description on the AEROstich.com website, I think you will agree that this little scamp looks like a "must have" for every workshop, and it's a bargain at the price!

If you found this article to be interest, visitMicrocontroller / MCU Designline where – in addition to my Max's Cool Beans blogs on all sorts of "stuff" – you will find the latest and greatest design, technology, product, and news articles with regard to all aspects of designing and using microcontrollers.

Also, you can obtain a highlights update delivered directly to your inbox by signing up for my weekly newsletter – just Click Here to request this newsletter using the Manage Newsletters tab (if you aren't already a member you'll be asked to register, but it's free and painless so don't let that stop you [grin]).

Last but certainly not least, make sure you check out all of the discussions and other information resources at All Programmable Planet. For example, in addition to blogs by yours truly, microcontroller expert Duane Benson is learning how to use FPGAs to augment (sometimes replace) the MCUs in his robot (and other) projects.

Ah the fun of messing with the young engineers.
One of favourites is to ask for the metric adjustable wrench ... after the initial look of confusion they hand me the adjustable wrench. Of course I always reply with, 'I said the METRIC adjustable NOT the SAE adjustable'
And then there's always the left handed screwdriver :)

Ah the tricks some people will play on the new inexperienced guy.
I just heard about a new inducty to RF power who needed to place an attenuator between his Lab/benche tops driver amp and the input to a transceivers RF power amplifier stage.
He needed to sweep the transceivers PA stage and there was a possibilty that his benchtop/lab amps RF output could spike up due to slow AGC action during startup and drive the PA to 6 db overdive which could blow out his final RF amp stage.
Instead of listening to this advice another individual told him to lower the transceivers receive volume during transmit which would lower his drive to the transmitter.
The poor kid was just about to do this, and possibly blow out the drivers and final PA stage, when another seasoned RF guru caught wind of this and set him straight.

In my workplace, we like to joke about computers getting slow because the megahertz is leaking out. PCs come with a certain amount of megahertz inside, but over time, as you add software, it tends to leak, and the computer slows down. That's where all that dust inside your computer comes from: evaporated megahertz. Repair shops which promise to speed up your computer have a megahertz pump which can refill it to some extent, the same way you refill an empty ink cartridge. Large PC stores have a big tank of megahertz in the back. Once a week a tanker truck comes by to deliver more.... Maybe I can find some mobile megahertz on e-bay for my phone...

It's a little known feature of the Cray supercomputers that the fluorinert coolant also served to capture any leaking smoke and cycle it through large filter units around the base of the machine. The smoke was then recompressed by motor-generators (usually located in an adjacent room) and fed back into the chips. This system required special, soluble smoke which greatly increased the price of the machines, but allowed them to operate at clock rates that would have diffused ordinary smoke in seconds. Truly a groundbreaking design.
I'm flabbergasted that technology has advanced to the point that a similar effect can be had with a simple $1,111.12 benchtop device. Amazing.